It looks like NVIDIA took their highly successful GK104 graphics processor and tried to reduce cost of all the other components as much as possible. We see a tiny PCB, low-cost cooler and conservative component selection. Normally this should be a recipe for disaster. But that's not the case with the GeForce GTX 670. While the card feels like a wimp, it becomes a champ once you feed it some graphics. In our testing we see excellent performance, matching AMD's much more expensive Radeon HD 7970. This puts the card just 7% slower than GTX 680, even though the difference gets bigger at higher resolutions. In terms of gaming resolutions the card can easily handle all games at maximum settings at 1920x1200. 2560x1600 works great in most games, only the most demanding titles might be more playable with slightly reduced settings.
NVIDIA improved energy efficiency again, leaving behind AMD's HD 7900 Series. Compared to the last generation GTX 570 we see twice the performance per Watt, at significantly reduced absolute power consumption numbers. GTX 670 will happily power a high-end gaming rig with a 400 W power supply, thanks to its efficient design. Typical gaming power draw is around 150 Watts for the card alone, which should be no problem for any decent power supply. The lower power consumption also reflects in cooling performance. Given NVIDIA's cheaped out cooler I didn't expect much, but temperatures are fine and noise levels are OK, they are certainly lower than AMD's HD 7970.
Overclocking works well too, we see maximum GPU clocks that are not far from what the GTX 680 offers. Only memory OC is a bit lower, which seems to caused by the PCB design and lack of cooling for the memory chips.
Overall the GTX 670 is a beast of a card that comes at a reasonable price of $399 when looking at the current-generation high-end segment. AMD's HD 7950 costs $380 and is hopeless against the GTX 670. HD 7970 at $450 might be a tiny bit faster, but loses on power and noise - and is 50 bucks more expensive. GeForce GTX 670 might even hurt sales of NVIDIA's own GTX 680, as it provides a very similar experience, but ends up being $100 cheaper, and in stock. GTX 670 is also ready for an all out price war with AMD, as the design is extremely cost optimized and could easily be sold at something like $250.